A Spring Show

A small dark animal stepped, slightly clumsily, over the mass of broken twigs and branches.  A little bewildered by the unfamiliar shape, colour and gait, I paused to watch more closely.  On my runs and walks through the woods I have disturbed plenty of squirrels and the occasional rabbit, hare, deer and those strange pig-deer muntjacs.  This was something different though and I was relieved that I was not back in the wild Cascade Mountains of my other home, since I could quickly dismiss my bear cub alarm.  Pointed ears, muddy brown fuzzy fur and with a flash of white on the tip of its tail it vanished into the safety of its set.  A fox cub! 

Spring woodlands are nature’s cabaret show: flagrant and enthralling. The warm air, scented with the sweetness of bluebells, was vibrating with the trilling of a choir of songbirds. Spears of bluebell leaves and freshly unfurled leaves on slender hazel branches all wear the same shade of absinthe green. Fern tips, tightly curled into spirals, will soon uncoil their graceful fronds. Jon and I passed quietly through this awakening landscape. We were both slightly lost to our own reflections, glad of the other’s unobtrusive presence, each in our own way full of admiration for nature’s show.